Biggest Free and Equitable Lunch

The Langar at Gurdwara Sahib

In the 15th century, when Guru Nanak was a young boy, his father sent him out into the world to make a good investment. Nanak decided the best way to invest was to feed the hungry, and the Sikh community kitchen was born. Dubbed the langar, it is the foundation of Sikh equality and a rejection of the Indian caste system wherein a person's social class is determined solely by ancestry. Everyone is welcome to the langar (pronounced lun-grrr), regardless of religion or cultural and economic background, to sit side by side in long rows on the floor and eat traditional Punjabi dishes -- strictly vegetarian. The Fremont langar is one of the largest in the Bay Area. The temple will feed five thousand people on a typical Sunday, and as many as twenty thousand on a Sikh holiday, such as Baisakhi, the new year.

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